Reply #14: Suspect conclusions

[adwon]

Here's an interesting part of that article.

Overall, since the war began, about 28% of Iraq veterans — about 50,000 servicemembers this year alone — returned with problems ranging from lingering battle wounds to toothaches, from suicidal thoughts to strained marriages. The figure dwarfs the Pentagon's official Iraq casualty count: 1,971 U.S. troops dead and 15,220 wounded as of Tuesday.

That's a pretty broad range of ailments to list. The implication of the article is that mass amounts of veterans are suffering from PTSD or similar ailments. Somehow I don't think a strained marriage (which is common in the army) or a toothache qualifies. Without more exact numbers, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that 1/4 of veterans have some kind of problem, though it may only be a toothache. This is just sloppy journalism.

Another citation from the article:

In October 2004, a federal panel of medical experts that studied illnesses of Gulf War veterans estimated that one in seven suffer war-related health problems.

1/7 seems a more reasonable figure for all possible health problems for veterans that stem from the war.